Is Gary Goldsmith really the Black Sheep of the Middleton family?

KATE MIDDLETON'S uncle appeared to live up to his status as the black sheep of the ­family last week by giving a tell-all interview to a ­magazine about the niece he knows and loves. The revelations sent shock waves through royal circles, reportedly leaving Kate feeling “betrayed” and her mother Carole “seething”.

Yet those who know the Middletons more intimately tell a rather different story of Uncle Gary’s relationship with his family.

In fact Uncle G, as he is known in the Middleton fold, could be Kate’s Uncle Big Bucks. Mystery has surrounded just how the Middletons made their millions. It is thought Gary’s financial advice helped the family business to boom and if they invested in his firm, which he sold for £30million, it helped to give Kate and her siblings a privileged upbringing.

He may have been seen as an outsider but an outcast? Far from it. Indeed, Uncle Gary’s place on the periphery of the royal order to which the Middletons have now become linked means he is not subject to the same protocols. Kate cannot defend herself, she must leave that to the Palace Press machine. Her siblings Pippa and James court controversy if they are seen to be guilty of self-promotion. James was once pilloried for giving an interview to the same magazine and their mother Carole faces similar accusations of “cashing in” if she dares to speak out.

Gary is free from such constraints however. The background to the interview speaks volumes about the role multi-millionaire Gary Goldsmith has assumed in the family since his niece married the future king.

It happened after author Hilary Mantel likened Kate to a shop window mannequin whose only purpose was to breed. Gary, who had been rumoured to be writing a book, was contacted by celebrity agent Phil Taylor with a view to signing him as a client.

The former News of the World journalist, who describes himself as “poacher turned gamekeeper” said he contacted Gary a month ago to see if he would give an interview.

“He didn’t agree straight away. He said, ‘Let me have a think about it’. It was at the height of the Hilary Mantel stuff and Pippa started getting criticised for writing a column in Waitrose magazine and he just felt that he wanted to stand up for his nieces.

“James had also copped some flack in the papers. No one was defending them. It was a big thing for him, having been branded the black sheep of the family but having seen both nieces heavily criticised and James as well, he decided to speak out.”

Goldsmith's £6m Ibiza mansion

The main motivation of the interview was to set the record straight and to stick up for his nieces and nephew.

Celebrity agent Phil Taylor

Although neither Taylor nor the magazine will reveal how much Uncle Gary was paid for the interview, which featured photos of his Ibiza mansion, La Maison de Bang Bang, now on the market at £6million, money was not the motivation. According to Taylor: “This is a man who made £30million by the time he was 30. He doesn’t need the money.

“It wasn’t to flog the mansion in Ibiza either. It has been on sale for a while and footballer Zinedine Zidane reportedly wanted to buy it. No, the main motivation was to set the record straight and to stick up for his nieces and nephew.”

Rumours of Carole, 57, being furious with her younger brother therefore appear wide of the mark. Sources close to the Middletons insist she and Gary are very close, despite their 10-year age gap, and that it would have been unthinkable for Gary to go ahead without Carole’s agreement.

Suggestions that the family have “never forgiven him” for bringing the Middleton name into disrepute by being photographed by a tabloid newspaper in 2009 chopping up cocaine also appear unfounded.

As one friend put it: “Gary was invited to the Royal Wedding wasn’t he? He was completely set up in 2009. The family never blamed him, they felt sorry for him, and so did the ­Royals. Sophie Wessex was also the victim of a sting by the same reporter.

“Gary admits he did it and still has huge regrets but he was at a very low point. His parents had recently died, his father very suddenly. He made one mistake and he does not deserve to be pilloried for ever more.”

At the wedding, Gary got support from an unexpected quarter. He told in the interview how the Duchess of Cornwall spoke to him and he said he was sorry for the bad press. “But Camilla just said, ‘Don’t think twice about it. I get the same myself’. She made an absolute point of coming over, which was so touching.”

There may be another reason why Carole has never borne a grudge against him. The four-times married father of one may be the secret of the ­Middletons’ success. While Party Pieces, their online party supplies business, has generated a generous income, there were doubts it could have sent all three children to £31,000-a-year Marlborough College and leave enough to buy a £750,000 flat in Chelsea without a mortgage, not to mention their £5million family mansion in Bucklebury, Berkshire.There were suggestions the Middletons’ lifestyle was part funded by a trust set up by Kate’s great great grandfather, Francis Martineau Lupton, a Yorkshire mill owner, who died in 1921. His estate was worth £70,538 (about £1.5million today) and he put it into a family trust which is still paying sums to his descendants.

A simpler explanation could be it was Gary who contributed to their wealth by giving them investment advice. He suggested to Carole the best way to expand Party Pieces was to start selling online, a move that turned around the firm’s fortunes. Gary, a recruitment consultant, joined a company called Computer Futures in 1993 and within 12 months was worth £1million. He took over the business, later known as S3, and sold it for a reported £30million in 2005. If the Middletons were fellow investors, as is suspected, they too will have reaped the rewards.

Perhaps Uncle Gary is not so much the black sheep but the goose that laid their golden egg.